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HOST INTRO: For more than half a century, Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island was the dumping ground for New York City. What began as a temporary, 3-year project to simply sink the foundation of a bridge grew into the country's largest facility for collecting garbage. Today, Fresh Kills is no longer a landfill, but a budding parkland. But New York hasn't stopped generating trash, and its once-local landfill is now replaced by dumps in a land far, far away. Megan Hauser has this story.
NAT SOUND PARK
N1: New York City's biggest open space is 2200 acres, and 3 times the size of Central Park. Grassy hills roll gently into meandering waterways. Native plants dot the landscape. And nearly 50 species of birds stop here during migration seasons.
NAT SOUND FK - BIRDWATCHERS…
N2: As bird watchers stroll through this surprisingly serene space, underneath their feet is four square miles of the world's most putrid leftovers. This is Fresh Kills, Staten Island, formerly the largest landfill in the U-S, and now home to a sprawling park and wildlife sanctuary.
A1 (NAGLE): IT's AN EXTRAORDINARILY BEAUTIFUL PLACE…VERY AUSTERE…IMMENSELY HUGE, UNIMAGINABLY HUGE, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU CONSIDER WHAT IT'S MADE OF.
N3: This is Robin Nagle. She's a garbage guru. She teaches a class at New York University called, "Garbage in Gotham: The Anthropology of Trash." She knows that at Fresh Kills, the garbage of yesterday is the wildflower of tomorrow…the casually discarded rubbish of the city slowly decomposes beneath the topsoil. This is the final resting place for over 50 years of New York City's trash. Refuse has been piling up here since Truman won a surprise presidential victory in 1948. All those infamous, pre-printed "Dewey Defeats Truman" newspapers are probably still here in Fresh Kills. But the garbage doesn't go there anymore. So how does the garbage of today start its day?
NAT SOUND: Good morning, gentlemen! Roll call! Villa Nueva, Martinez, Jackson…
N4: It is nearly 6 a.m. at Garage Number 7 on 57th St. and West Side Highway in Manhattan. It is still dark along the Hudson River. The sun isn't up yet, but 47 guys in regulation green jumpsuits are up. They're fidgety…trying to sit still on wooden benches that line a room that looks like a broken down hunting lodge. Supervisor Chiaramello (SHALLA-MELLO) takes the daily roll call, and the men answer like boys in high school gym class.
NAT SOUND UP: Jimenez! Here! Franklin! Here! D'Amico! He had to deliver a package! (laughter)…
N5: These are the San Men - New York's sanitation workers. They are seven thousand strong, and with nearly six thousand vehicles, they're the largest city sanitation department in the world. And every day, they pick up over twelve thousand tons of New York's garbage…enough trash to fill 800 garbage trucks. Keith Mellis has worked for the Department of Sanitation for the past 18 years.
A (MELLIS): WE'RE OUT HERE - 24 HOURS, SIX DAYS A WEEK, AND EVEN ON SUNDAYS.
NAT SOUND TRUCKS UP
N6: As the sun comes up, the men head out towards their assigned trucks. They rev the engines, (VROOM) check the machinery, and test the hoppers (VROOM) - the back-loading scoops and compressors. Slowly, the massive trucks rumble out of the lot like giant lumbering beasts.
NAT SOUND TRUCKS
N7: Meanwhile, the superintendent at the YMCA on 63rd and Central Park West puts out the garbage. Stuff from visitors around the world - loose change, shampoo, and food - sits in a Hefty bag on the curb, about to go on a little journey. Two San men, Tierney and Russo, swing by to pick it up. As they lift it, the bag breaks open, spilling juicy and stinky trash all over the pavement.
A (TIRENEY): THIS IS WHAT WE CALL A "SLOP." DO NOT STAND DIRECTLY BEHIND THIS BEAST BECAUSE GARBAGE SHOOTS OUT OF IT. SEE HOW IT JUST SPIT OUT? YOU DON'T WANT TO GET "SWILLED." I LEARNED THAT MY FIRST WEEK HERE. IT HAPPENS TO EVERYONE. SOMETIMES, WHEN YOU GET SWILLED, YOU LOOK LIKE A CHICKEN CUTLET.
N8: The San men all agree that New Yorkers need to tie their garbage bags better. This kind of explosion happens a lot, and sometimes it's hazardous material like broken glass or chemicals that spill out. But mostly, it's just gross. And considering that every day, each American produces nearly 5 pounds of garbage…that's a lot to have to clean up.
NAT SOUND TRUCKS UP
N9: Each sanitation truck holds around 15 tons of garbage…. enough garbage for six thousand people. Once filled, it is either driven to an incinerator in Newark, New Jersey where the trash is burned and generates electricity…Or, it goes to a "transfer station" where an even bigger truck picks up the trash and drives it out to landfills in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
A (MELLIS): WHEN OUR GUYS HAVE TO DUMP THEIR LOAD THEY GO NO MORE THAN 50 MILES TO NEW JERSEY…PATTERSON, TOTOWA. IT'S A LONGER DRIVE FOR CREWS NOW.
N10: Previously, New York City's residential trash was interned at Fresh Kills. The landfill was said to be the world's second-largest man made object after the Great Wall of China, and the only other creation visible from space.
For over 50 years, it was the city's only dump, and ingested over 10,000 tons of trash each day. But in 2001, Mayor Rudy Guiliani closed the site as a promise to the residents of Staten Island that helped him win a second term in office. But many say the closure was premature.
A (NAGLE): CLOSING FRESH KILLS WAS ONE OF THE STUPIDEST IDEAS THE CITY EVER HAD
N11: Professor Robin Nagle
A (NAGLE) IT ABSOLUITELY REQUIRES NOW THAT WE SPEND HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO GET OUR TRASH OUT OF THE CITY AND THE PRIVATE FIRMS THAT HANDLE OUR TRASH NOW UNDERSTAND THAT WE ARE HOG TIED, WE DON'T HAVE ANY OPTION BESIDES THESE FIRMS. SO THEY CAN VERY QUIETLY OR LOUDLY - DECIDE THEY ARE GOING TO CHARGE US MORE PER TON AND MORE PER TON.
N12: According to Nagle, Fresh Kills had 80 years worth of capacity left. But building on top of landfills in not an uncommon fate…most of New York City is built atop landfills, thanks to the Robert Moses method of development in the 1930s and 40s. After Fresh Kills closed down, the city had to scurry to find alternative dumping options, like shipping it out of state. Not only is exporting New York's garbage costly, it creates environmental problems from the diesel exhaust at the transfer stations - stations that are historically placed in less affluent neighborhoods in New York's outer boroughs. But the garbage has to go somewhere…and what may be bad for Queens and Brooklyn is good for Staten Island.
A (NAGLE): IF YOU LIVE ON STATEN ISLAND, CLOSING FRESH KILLS WAS THE SMATREST THING THE CITY EVER DID. BECAUSE FRESH KILLS WAS A HORRIFIC, OUTRAGEOUS BLIGHT GENERATED BY A LIE THAT SIMPLY PERPETUATED THAT BOROUGH'S SENSE THAT THE REST OF THE CITY REALLY DIDN'T HAVE MUCH TO DO WITH OR CARE FOR STATEN ISLAND THAN TO LITERALLY DUMP ON IT.
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NAT SOUND PARK
N13: Back at Fresh Kills, The Municipal Arts Society and the Department of City Planning lead a tour for the curious. Landscape architects, urban planners, and residents of Staten Island amble along the sculpted paths amidst wildflowers and cat-o'-nine-tails that sway in the wind. Magda Salvesen lags behind the tour to take close-up snapshots of the poplar trees. She's on the Board of Botanical Gardens in Queens, and says cities nowadays have to think very carefully about open areas for recreation and pleasure. She thinks refurbishing a landfill is a keen idea.
A (SALVESEN): SOMETHING THAT WE THINK OF AS SOMETHING PRETTY GHASTLY IS GOING TO BE TURNED INTO PUBLIC AMMENITY AND SOMETHING WONDERFUL FOR PEOPLE TO WALK AROUND AND PICNIC AND LOOK AT BIRDS AND GENERALLY HAVE AN OUTSIDE AREA TO GO TO.
N14: This is urban design with a conscience…taking old land and recycling it. And part of this means not creating a very garden-like park, but allowing regeneration to happen on its own. Salvesen says this is a 21st century problem…and a 21st century solution.
A (SALVESEN): NOWADAYS THERE ARE MANY SITES WITH INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION AND GARBAGE, SO IT'S A NEW KIND OF CHALLENGE TO USE LAND WHICH WAS UNUSABLE AND TURN IT INTO A PLACE FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC.
N14: It's a new way to use technology to deal with abused areas. This is achieved by "capping" the four trash mounds at Fresh Kills…covering the garbage with an impermeable liner, clay, and soil. Gooseneck pipes sprout from the ground every 100 yards or so. They trap and store the methane gas that is released by the decomposing garbage underground so it can be burned off after hours. The place is odorless.
It's spectacular, partially for its ambitious size, and partially for its unsavory origins. It is never far from the minds of the visitors that they are walking on urban waste from millions of people…and just as many stories.
Megan Hauser, Columbia Radio News.